Don saw a flash of Frick and Frack screaming as blood covered them, drowned them. "I'm certain the government is at least tangentially aware of the situation. This has gone on for a while. My gut says we're on our own."

"Yeah." Kurt nodded. "Mine too. Think Granddad or Luther had any inkling?"

"Doesn't make a difference."

"Makes one to me. I'd like to know which side they were on."

"Again, it doesn't matter. They're dust and we're stuck."

"My world's upside down. Be rea.s.suring to think our kin weren't in on it with the Mocks. f.u.c.king collaborators. Maybe not all of them. Maybe the ones who don't go along with the program get disappeared and that's why we only ever met those biddies Babette and Yvonne. The rest of them...I don't think we'll see Holly again."

"Let's not throw in the towel just yet."

"Get real, Dad. Mom took Holly to a bad scene. An evil ritual, or whatever."

"Safe to say burning bras or celebrating menopause weren't on the agenda. It's no good expecting the worst, though. Could be nothing happened. She loves your sister."

"If you can't indoctrinate the ones you love, who can you indoctrinate? Sis is totally screwed. And if Holly does come back she won't be my sister anymore. Mom hasn't been Mom since I was a kid, has she? She's been a Pod Person since 1980 at least. That's when she found her Hollow Earth people, right? The worms."

"The Limbless Ones," Don said.

"What?"

"That's what somebody called those...creatures in the trees."

"I saw the expressions on their faces. What do you know about this s.h.i.t? Why haven't you told me?"

"I'd forgotten. If I'm lucky I'll forget again. Those aren't what we need to worry about. There are worse things."

"Honestly, it's Mom that scares the s.h.i.t outta me. She's the ringmaster of this circus. We need to get gone before she comes bopping home from her vacation and sees what we've been up to."

Don glanced at the cellar and smiled sadly. "Too late for that, I'm afraid."

Kurt set aside the bottle. His grubby face was slick with sweat. The broken arm must be hurting, and that pain would intensify with every pa.s.sing minute as the shock and adrenaline dissipated and cold reality settled in on them. "I feel it. I feel it, all right. Something terrible is down there. You want to go, don't you?"

"Want?" Don shook his head. "Not even remotely. I'm going down there because there's no choice. None at all."

"The h.e.l.l you are. We're going to hop in my rig and put the pedal to the metal." Kurt snapped free of his daze and grabbed the phone off the wall and dialed awkwardly with his good hand, cradling the receiver with his chin. Dialing Winnie, no doubt, and Don, despite the circ.u.mstances, was morbidly curious as to precisely what his son intended to say. Baby, creatures from Planet X are slithering through a worm hole and we got to make tracks! There was no answer, though, and Kurt dropped the phone on the tiles in disgust. The younger man's expression was definitely on the crazed end of the spectrum. He wore the hollow expression of someone reacting to a sh.e.l.led neighborhood or a pile of corpses.

Not for the first time in his eighty-plus years, Don reflected that witnessing a strong man break was among the most terrible sights possible. He said, "Kiddo, you've got the right idea. Climb in your car and go home to your lovely wife. Your baby."

"I can't leave you."

"Your wife and child. Focus, my boy."

"Jesus, I don't even know if Winnie is playing for team Earth anymore. And what are you gonna do?"

"Wait for your mother. We need to talk."

"Dad, that's not a smart move. Mom is...She might walk through the door any second, or it might be days or weeks."

"Oh, my hunch is it won't be so long. Go home, be with your own family. This is between your mother and I."

Kurt stared at him, fish-eyed and blank. Then he whistled a few bars from the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, and grinned with at least a hint of real humor. "All right, Dad. I'm going." He lurched over and gave Don a partial hug.

"Should you see your mother or me again," Don said, "be careful."

"What do you suggest?"

"Check for zippers. That's all I'm saying."

Man and dog were alone in the empty house at the edge of the hills. Don had tried to get Thule to go with Kurt, to no avail. The dog refused to budge from his spot three feet from the cellar door where he growled and grumbled.

The sun disappeared below the horizon and the purple light quickly gave way to darkness. Don snapped on the kitchen lights and a few others on the first floor. This didn't bring much comfort; the illumination was feeble and it flickered ominously and the blackness pressed hard against the windows.

"Oh, Argyle," he said to the empty air. "I already miss you, you old goat." He might've wept then if not for the numbness of body and spirit. He'd looted the bathroom dresser for ancient prescriptions and located a bottle of Demerol. What had he needed it for? Standing in the threshold of the living room, acutely aware of its cramped artificiality, the thinness of the walls, he swallowed half a dozen pills and chased them with a shot of cooking sherry. Exhaustion weighed upon him. His thoughts were jagged, dark bits of gla.s.s tumbling through storms of goose down.

He ventured into the cellar and down the rickety steps, his way lighted by a cheap, dirty bulb. The dilapidated stacks of rotten shelving and corroded jars of preserves were as he remembered, and so too the dirt floor and the cobwebs. He was alarmed, but hardly surprised to find the narrow tunnel boring through the south wall where a rack of odds and ends had once dominated. The opening forced him to duck and it smelled damp and ripe.

There was an interruption of time and movement and sound; a cigarette burn in a film followed by a sheared reel. Then power was restored and he stumbled and caught himself at the threshold of the living room. His eardrums popped with a painful pressure change. Though the room seemed stable, his innards sloshed about as if he were falling at terminal velocity.

"Time is a ring," Bronson Ford said. The dwarf was seated in Don's favorite wingback, orientated toward the fireplace so that his face was hidden. Bronson Ford's right hand dangled over the armrest. His gray fingers were so long and sharp they brushed the floorboards. His timbre was rich and modulated. Gone was the broken English, the intimation of mental deficiency. It was a voice rife with the kind of animus and evil that only a deranged genius could emit. Soft as the wind soughing through the canopy and it reminded Don of the men at the tree farm, Mexicans, Hondurans, wherever they hailed from; dark men with wide hats and black-handled machetes, their peculiar fluting cries, the cant of some ancient song that rose and drifted among the green galleries. "We travel the ring, forward and backward, molding it like plastic. Your Mich.e.l.le can do it too, to a minor degree. She has taken the fumbling infant steps across the lightless expanses as a part of her initiation. Very difficult to maintain any semblance of humanity after one has glimpsed the Great Dark."

Oh, Jesus. He plucked that from my mind. "Frankly, I hadn't thought of you in years." Don grabbed a bra.s.s flower vase off the shelf and moved toward Bronson Ford, fully intent upon cracking his nemesis across the back of the skull. Three steps into the room the lights shorted and went dead and an icy breeze ruffled Don's hair.

Bronson Ford chuckled from somewhere in the distance and the sound echoed as if from the depths of a cavern. "It won't last, this clarity of thought. You are suffering from permanent brain damage. This lucidity is a ray of light through the clouds. Soon to be extinguished. Enjoy the interlude."

Don halted, partially crouched, blind, heart thudding, waves of vertigo threatening to topple him. He was overwhelmed by the impression of vast, subterranean s.p.a.ce. "Who are you?" The way his words traveled and traveled before rebounding from a wall intensified his queasiness. Faint sparks of starlight refracted from a ceiling that might've been within arm's reach or thousands of feet distant.

"Mich.e.l.le's fascination with you has eluded me. Then, I gaze into your eyes and note that indeed your double helix spins precisely the same as a certain ancestor. He was a spy. This runs in the family. Your father and grandfather were spies." Bronson Ford's voice drifted, echoing from afar, then crooning near Don's ear. "Should you happen to see young master Kurt again feel free to tell him neither man was particularly brave or wise or n.o.ble. Luther knew a couple of things, guessed a few more. We never considered him a threat to our plans. As for your father... A grunt who died for G.o.d and Country with the same amount of panache and self-awareness as a driver ant sacrificing itself for the colony."

"I say again, who are you?"

"One who is interested in your species. The bogeymen in your histories and legends. We are far older than you can imagine and have haunted you since you were protoplasmic slime bobbing on the tide line. My kind are epicures. We revel in sensual pleasures, be it as gourmands or sybarites. We sup of blood and fear, we rejoice in flensing away that which occults the truth. Pointless to repeat what you already know. Wolverton and Rourke told you everything. Your recognition of these facts is a chemical bloom that lights your cerebral cortex with fireworks. It is this dawning of horror upon primitive minds that gives me my greatest frisson. I have lived thousands of your own lifecycles and the taste of your revulsion and horror never grows stale."

"Right. We're ants and you're the kid with the magnifying gla.s.s. Is that really all there is to this? I'd hoped the universe either had a grand scheme or was at least monumentally indifferent. This Olympus c.r.a.p is rather disappointing." Don still clutched the vase, hoping for a clean shot. He feared to take another step lest he tumble from a pinnacle of stone into a chasm.

"Despite our superiority to you, we remain but a cog in the gears. We aren't G.o.ds, although the distinction is insignificant from your perspective. Whatever our discrepancies as one life form to another, you are certainly handy to keep around. From your babies we draw nourishment-my feast of blood and terror. From your adult population we are provided research and sport. A select few of your kind supply the raw materials to replenish our eternal line. These we decorticate and realign through agony and degradation unto an aesthetic pleasing to our traditions. These lucky few, the prime exemplars of humanity, are made immortal. The offer has been extended you in the past. You most ungraciously refused. A stubborn breed, the Millers."

Don flung the vase toward Bronson Ford's monologue. He hoped for a cry of outrage, a thud, anything. No response was forthcoming. He waited several seconds and said, "Where are my wife and daughter, you scoundrel? Argyle and Hank?"

"Your a.s.sociates languish upon a metaphorical anthill. They will endure a right Christian h.e.l.l for ages to come. Those fools are beyond help. Your women...That is a more delicate matter."

"If you aren't a G.o.d, you're d.a.m.ned well the black Pope. You must want something of me if you're making house calls."

Bronson Ford's answering cackle was thunderous. A section of the darkness rippled with pale fire and mult.i.tudes of stars wheeled as if through a pane of warped gla.s.s. Alien constellations shimmered and contorted as a black stain spread across them; there was the sun burning low and red, the solar system and its decaying planets, Earth...

Earth was cloaked in a poisonous crimson mist. The oceans were stagnant soup. Festering jungles of maroon and ochre covered one hemisphere; sterile volcanic deserts the other. Most cities were buried under shifting sand or rotting vegetation or had fallen into pits in the earth. Structures that remained intact were webbed in foliage, gummed in amber glaciations, and contorted into spicate towers that bore scant resemblance to their original shapes.

Primates gathered in these marginally habitable regions, but as Bronson Ford's lens swooped to magnify them it became clear these hapless wretches were twisted out of plumb much as the skysc.r.a.pers were. The ma.s.ses shuffled toward a ziggurat the size of the Empire State Building. The mighty ziggurat was constructed of flesh and bone from countless sentient corpses. A dripping black tunnel to Elsewhere opened at its heart. In clots, then droves, the approaching stick figures elevated and were sucked into the shuttering iris. They shrieked as flies shriek.

"Do you understand what awaits in the waning days of your civilization? That viscid hole in the altar doesn't lead to my home. Nay, little man; this is a mouth of our father, Old Leech. That venerable worthy rouses every few epochs and demands provender. Soft, screaming humanity is among the sweetest. What you witness here is only the beginning of the end. The Great Dark will arrive and coc.o.o.n your world as it coc.o.o.ns ours. Terra will be hollowed and refined as we hollow and refine sapient flesh, and the planet shall be added to the Diaspora, dragged from its...o...b..t of Sol, and taken away. This is what always happens." Bronson Ford revealed himself highlighted by a shaft of b.l.o.o.d.y radiance, a monstrous and bloated giant perched atop a slag heap of bones that floated on the surface of an illimitable void. His eyes and mouth were portals that mirrored the iris in the ziggurat, the void itself. He was de Goya's Saturn, Polyphemus, and Satan sans horns. His flesh appeared to be multiple skins st.i.tched together like a quilt. He cracked a smile of benign malevolence.

Don's tongue was dry. He tried to sound brave. "Lucky for me I'll be long dead. Everyone I know will be gone."

"A reasonable observation. Alas, alack for you, one that isn't necessarily correct. The Diaspora won't reach local s.p.a.ce for eons. However, it is possible for me to make certain you and those you cherish are preserved to bear witness firsthand of that most dread gloaming. Tell me, little miller, wouldn't you rather be a beneficiary of the inevitable conquest rather than a victim? What of your mate? I am exceedingly curious to discover how much you love her. The females of the Mock line have served us adequately. Yet, I sense her affection for you might prove an impediment to her ultimate absorption unto our ranks. The poor woman is so inordinately fond of you, my ancient antagonist. Frankly, I despair that we'll wind up having to devour her alive. Divided loyalties are simply not done in my homeland."

Don had an inkling of what lay in store. Creatures such as Bronson Ford could easily snuff lives or s.n.a.t.c.h what they desired. That wasn't their preference, however. These devils, like all devils, were manipulators. Time and s.p.a.ce stretched before them in an endless wasteland. Ennui was the only enemy immortal monsters possessed. They sought victory through the corruption and d.a.m.nation of the soft, the innocent, the weak. He considered leaping forward and falling to his doom or precipitating a violent reaction from his demonic adversary, anything to avoid the fate that awaited him as surely as did the grave. Instead, he heard himself say, "Name your bargain."

"It's a small thing." At this, Bronson Ford laughed again, relishing a nasty private joke. "The trade is painless, for you. I'll guarantee the scion of the Mocks maintains her current status as liaison and at the end of your natural life you'll be brought into our fold, forever reunited with her. In return, you'll grant me the precious little gift I traditionally accept as recompense. Refuse and wifey goes on the anthill with Uncle Argyle and hapless Hank, and Frick & Frack, to name a few, while you regress into diapers and perish, drooling and raving, in some dump of a hospice. It has always been about the child. Give me that pound of flesh, so to speak, and we'll be even."

When it hit Don what was being proposed, what child the creature meant, the strength ran from him and he sank to his knees. "But for the love of all that's holy, what you demand isn't even mine to give."

"Oh, don't fret about the details. As you say, we take what we please. I just want to hear you say it."

"I can't." Don raised his hands in supplication and wept. For an instant he beheld a vision of Mich.e.l.le naked and alight with angelic radiance, hovering in s.p.a.ce. This was Mich.e.l.le as she'd been in the flower of maiden-hood. She smiled at him and faded away. The next vision was of a child squalling as claws sharp and steely as darning needles pierced its flesh and blood flowed. "I can't. I can't." Don clouted himself about the forehead and temples. He tore at the remnants of his hair. He prayed for dementia and oblivion, tortured by the knowledge his faculties would deteriorate only after he'd been forced to make his hideous choice.

Bronson Ford merely grinned and waited for the old man to choose.

Someone found him on the dirt floor of the cellar, dehydrated and unconscious. Besides a few contusions and abrasions, Don was physically sound. His mental acuity wasn't so intact.

Time pa.s.sed. Don lay first in a bed at home, dutifully nursed by Mich.e.l.le, then toward the end, his family transferred him to a private room at a hospital in town. He was scarcely aware of the external world, surfacing at odd intervals to note a familiar television jingle, the voice of a loved one, or the tap of rain against the window. He vaguely registered the frequent vigils of his family and almost came fully awake during one visit by a pair of men in dark suits and gla.s.ses. The men asked a series of questions and were eventually ushered out by the ladies in white. Occasionally he overheard sc.r.a.ps of conversation between his family and the doctors. A bland fellow in a smock kept referring to encephalitis and vermiculate perforations of the brain, and terminal. There were many tears.

Lucidity smote Don like a lightning bolt one late afternoon, and when it did, he realized he must be dying, although his senses were m.u.f.fled in gauze and it was difficult to concentrate, much less evaluate his predicament.

The sun was a blood-red band sinking fast. The hospital room lay in darkness except for the beam of light that illuminated his narrow bed. His immediate family stood in the gloom at the foot of the bed-Kurt and Kaiwin and their baby boy; Mich.e.l.le and Holly to the opposite side. Poor Holly had been in some kind of accident; a wicked scar peeped from the vee of her blouse. The scar was pink and raw.

Don struggled to focus. He was happy that the bed lay in the sunlight because the darkness was so cold. He'd never liked the dark.

Kurt came around and kissed his cheek, followed by Holly and Kaiwin who did the same. They each whispered endearments to him and hugged Mich.e.l.le on the way out. Mich.e.l.le stopped Kaiwin and convinced her to leave baby Jonathan with his grandma. "You look so exhausted, honey," she said to Kaiwin.

The door snicked shut and grandparents and grandchild regarded one another in the dying red light. The infant crawled on the bed. The pleasant vacuum of Don's mind began to fill with ice.

"Sweetheart," Mich.e.l.le said with infinite tenderness. Her red lips gleamed. Her hair was black and l.u.s.trous as it had been in youth. She leaned forward and scooped the baby up and pulled him into the shadows. She whispered, "I love you. Thank you."

Don wanted to reply that he loved her, more now than when they first met, wanted to profess that he'd love her forever and a day. Speech was impossible. His breath slowed and he wheezed and choked as his heart labored. The sight of the baby wriggling in Mich.e.l.le's arms paralyzed him with horror. He couldn't remember why.

OTHER BOOKS BY LAIRD BARRON.

Occultation.

The Imago Sequence.